Plantation puts ban of animal sales from puppy mills on hold

June 9, 2014|Alyssa Cutter, acutter@tribune.com

Vicki and Robert Siegel, owners of Plantation's only — and recently opened — pet shop, can breathe a little easier for the next few months. Plantation officials decided to wait until the fall to decide whether or not the retail sale of animals would be banned from the city.

City Attorney Donald Lunny pulled the ordinance, which was up for second reading because of several requests to wait on the matter, both from animal rights groups and attorneys representing the pet store owners so that there would be more time to consider it.

The city had tried to rework the ordinance after the first reading, according to Lunny, to strike a better balance that would allow more flexibility for Petland Plantation. The changes included allowing dogs and cats to be resold by a pet store, if the animals came from a breeder that is accredited by a national organization, like the American Kennel Club or The Cat Fanciers Association. The City Council would have to approve further national organizations before a pet shop could buy from associated breeders.

Another change to the ordinance would allow city pet shops to buy and resell animals from hobby breeders, a measure that was banned in the original ordinance, and give the current business more time to adjust to the changes. The previous version of the proposed law also only allowed pet shops to buy puppies from rescue organizations, publicly run shelters, and nonprofits, something that the Siegels said is almost impossible.

"It's not that I wouldn't sell from rescues," Vicki Siegel said. "We have tried that before at our store in [the town of Davie]. They don't want to deal with us because it takes away from their business. I also tried to work with the Humane Society in the past; they don't need us to work with them."

If the ordinance had passed in its original form, the Siegels say it would have hurt their business to the tune of millions of dollars, and they would have had no choice but to sue the city since they are already an approved business. Between her two stores, one in Plantation and the other operating for eight years in Davie, she keeps about 80 dogs in stock and sells about two a day on average.

"I don't think I should be needing to protect my business, when we've just been here three months," Vicki Siegel said. "It's really rude, and I don't think that's fair."

The ordinance will be reworked again before being brought back for consideration in the fall since the city received quite a few complaints about its current form, according to Lunny.

"It appears that my effort to strike what I thought was a practical alternative might have not been a good one because, based on emails, it might fall short of the mark," Lunny said. "There are criticisms that I have not independently confirmed, like the American Kennel Club, for example, doesn't do a good job accrediting breeders, according to unconfirmed press reports."

The ordinance is proposed to be back on the council agenda during a meeting in October.